Iconic image there of everyone's favourite girl band. I would post a picture of myself but no one needs to see that.

 

Anyway my plan is for a series of these talking about singers and bands (Girl bands for the most part) that I enjoy. Some will be countdowns of albums or singles or songs. Others will just be blabbering on about them.

 

Starting with The Saturdays, I shall be counting down through their iconic videos, then albums and finally I shall be taking you on a countdown of every single song.

 

Get ready for some fun.

The Videos

18th Gentlemen

 

UK Chart Peak: 14

 

HOLY MOTHER OF GREEN SCREEN!

 

Follow up to their first (and only) number one single with this. The song is decent but not really worthy of being a single, however this is about the video and just WOW. I don't know where to start. For the second time in the Living For The Weekend era we have a very pregnant Saturday in the video and we are sort of trying to hide it here and not really succeeding. Here we are on a green screened version of the street from Desperate Housewives. If a solo Melanie B can afford to film an (amazing) video on that set really The Saturdays could have been able to afford it. (Lets ignore that Rochelle was probably to pregnant to fly at this point.) After getting so much right with the video for the last single this felt like such a massive back step. This is by far the worst video The Saturdays have ever made. Luckily for us (and for them) better was to come and their next experience with a mostly green screened effort is much better. Gentleman however as both a single and a video was something The Saturdays never really recovered from.

17th Up

UK chart peak: 5

 

 

 

I know this is going to get a lot of hate. Yes I know this video gave us hundreds of iconic gifs and moments. http://i38.tinypic.com/fvflg8.gif However it just comes across as unfinished, the budget for this was obviously very low, like many "save me" songs in the past. The green/blue screen is really not utilised fully, just changing the background slightly. Yes the bars are nice but for what is one of their best singles we need a much better effort. Luckily though with a song like Up the video doesn't really matter, and Up as of August 2014 remained their second best selling single.

 

With the bottom 2 gone the two videos I really dislike are also gone. So as they once said "Up is where we go from here" :cry:

The gentleman video is so horrid so good to see that last! I like the Up video though.

Looking forward to the rest of this countdown Martyn :heart:

I really wish that each Saturday had like their own colour that they kept throughout their career, like how the Spice Girls had Sporty, Posh etc

Damn 'Up' is a good pop tune, I'd forgotten!

16th Forever Is Over

 

 

UK peak: 2

 

I will start by saying I quite enjoy Forever Is Over the song. However the video is really just boring. It does have some unintentionally hilarious parts such as Mollie and Frankie by the pay phone and Rochelle not really enjoying dinner. I hate the Frankie by the leopard print scenes they look cheap. There is a lot of small little clips that don't flow really well together. Also the Lover- Over thing was done much better by Rachel Stevens back in 2005. We could really have done with more in the blue room and in the dark street towards the end of the video. The video for Forever Is Over is an alright concept but executed terribly. Up next... another lead single.

15th If This Is Love

 

 

UK peak: 8

 

Back to the beginning now. While there is nothing wrong with it, we get to see each girl quite a bit, the video has nothing to do with the song. They perform on a street window, are we in Amsterdam? Jonny wants you to call him. I forgot this is quite boring, it's a lot of posing on a stage behind their street window. That crowd doesn't look real. I think the video is meant to make The Saturdays look already established, it doesn't really work. Anyway nice but boring about describes our first venture into The Saturdays.

 

Next time: The Saturdays go sexy and get an unwanted record.

14th Just Can't Get Enough

UK peak: 2

 

So lets get this out of the way, the video mix of the song isn't so great. Yes it's closer to the original, but I prefer the punchier/camper radio mix.

Just Can't Get Enough was the girls 4th single and the Comic Relief single back in 2009. Less than a year after their debut. All signs were pointing to number 1 until Flo Rida and an uncredited Ke*dollar sign*ha sang about oral sex, keeping The Saturdays off of number 1. This meant The Saturdays act releasing the official Comic Relief single to miss number 1 since it switched to being a March release every other year in 1995. However 2 years later The Wanted entered at number 3 so you know shit happens.

 

Anyway on to the video. Do we really need to see The Saturdays in their lingerie? I know it's all tongue in cheek, but following on from their first three singles it really feels out of place. In this video the leopard print rug is with Mollie. It's a lot of posing in front of a white wall towards the end. I think this is a very un-Saturdays video, they can do sexy, but I don't need to see them mostly undressed, stay classy everyone. I am not sure what there sorta failed Macarena dance they do towards the end.

 

Up next: two videos with good concepts badly executed. Aka, the story of The Saturdays.

 

Any thoughts so far?

 

13th Notorious

 

 

UK peak: 8

 

Ah it starts of so lovely on the 5th floor. The office scene is different, I love the stamps. They have made some hilarious gifs. I think had we stayed in the office the video could have been better. I think a Charlie's Angles inspired scene (the one with Lucy Lui yelling at people) could have been amazing. However we don't stay on the 5th floor, we go up to the 15th floor and descend into a generic looking hot with some product placement in the club. Notorious is a good concept executed terribly.

 

Up next: we go for a strut.

12th Not Giving Up

 

 

UK peak: 19

 

OK, this should have been lower. I think I let my love for the song blur my view. Once again the Citroen makes an appearance, Not Giving Up was the third time one made an appearance in one of The Saturdays videos and is it's second appearance in this countdown. Sadly at this point, despite being only just over a year after What About Us reached number 1, things were not looking good in The Saturdays camp. Fan favourite released as the 5th single from Living For The Weekend, but at the same time as the single it was announced there would be a Greatest Hits album and tour.

 

Despite being one of their best songs, the video for Not Giving Up is another single that falls under the banner of good concept, badly executed. I can get over the product placement of the car, it only appears in the opening bars. I guess it could be classed as classic Saturdays, looks a bit amateur and the dancing is out of sync. I really like the tubes of light, although eplipcy sufferers beware, however the rest of the lighting isn't brilliant and doesn't show anyone in the best light. This is I think the only video in which there is only one outfit for the whole song. Although major props for this being one of the few singles in the back end of there career when no one was pregnant in the video.

 

Next time, we may actually take that strut.

Just catching up with these Martyn, a great read so far! 'Up' going out so soon saddens me. I suppose when you compare it to their more recent videos now it does look rather of that time - and I still think of 2008 as being yesterday, not 7 years ago!

 

But that did put them on the map that single. I knew they were in for good run when they bought that out. 'Forever is Over' would be in my top 5 for sentimental reasons - they bought that single out the week I started at uni and I remember blasting the 'Wordshaker' album all through my first semester (they played at my students' union Christmas ball that year too, which was the first time I saw them).

 

I can't wait till we get to the later years of the 00s on my girl group thread so I can start writing my reviews!

Absolutely loving this, I always need a good consistent girlband in my life and The Saturdays coming in just as Girls Aloud/Sugababes were going out was a relief. Even know things appear to be over for The Sats, Little Mix and Fifth Harmony have stepped up their games so I should be well catered for for a few year hopefully

 

I know girlbands tend to experience less commercial success than there male counter parts, but in general they also seem to have longer careers. Really, how many boybands were still getting Top 20 hits seven years after their debut? Take That and Westlife are the only ones I can think of

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

11th. Work

 

 

UK Peak: 22 :(

 

Ah Work, coming about 2 months too late. Released closer to the 1st single from Wordshaker than the 4th single from Chasing Lights.

 

The video has a compition from I think Microsoft for two winners to appear in it, I think they had to show how they could "Work" with Microsoft Office or something equally stupid. I am not sure what happened to the little boy but the little girl walks past some Chasing Lights posters and up some stairs never to be seen again, so I guess she dies or something slightly less morbid.

 

Anyway Work isn't a bad music video, it's actually pretty decent, however it is very un-Saturdays especially after the very colourful four videos that preceded it. Over sexual, although fitting with the song comes across as very try-hard for The Saturdays. I really don't like how in the first set of outfits Vanessa is in purple when the others are in black, it would work more if she was in the middle, but she isn't, her belt looks like a back brace. While we are talking about styling can I just ask what is happening with Frankie's hair in this video, it looks like half her hair was attacked with extensions. I am assuming this is so she has hair to flip in the video.

 

The male dancers are a nice change, because 5 singles in we hadn't had this in a video yet, although I prefer it when they are with the girls than alone. The second outfits don't really work for me, especially on Rochelle, those rubber-ish gloves need to. She also doesn't oooze the sex appeal in this video, it comes across cheesy more than anything else. Lovely fireworks curtain at the end.

 

Up next we go into the top 10

Edited October 14, 20159 yr by Martyn